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Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu.
- Security flaws in the issuance of cards for welfare recipients have exposed the personal information of millions of recipients.
- It is estimated that around 12 million cards were compromised.
- Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu said they were alerted in 2019 that the master keys to the cards had been compromised.
The security breaches for the master keys of the social grant recipient cards occurred right at the beginning of the payment contract with the South African Post Office (SAPO).
This is according to the response of the Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu, to a parliamentary question from the deputy of the IFP, Liezl van der Merwe.
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It is estimated that around 12 million bank cards, including the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) cards, were compromised, exposing the personal data of the beneficiaries.
“It should be noted that the potentially compromised cards did not result in any social grant recipients losing money from the social grant. The fraud that social grant clients have experienced has been the result of poor implementation of controls in the management of the cards. within the post office environment, and not due to the security of the card itself. The security lapse of the master keys of Sassa cards is not something that has happened in recent months, but rather at the beginning of the payment contract with SAPO, “Zulu said.
He said that in 2019 Sassa was alerted that the cards’ master keys had been compromised “in the banking environment.”
“The South African Reserve Bank (SARB), as the entity responsible for the national payment system, issued an instruction in late 2019 that all current Sassa cards would have to be replaced as they are potentially compromised. However, the SARB also established conditions for the improvement of controls within the Postbank environment related to the manufacture, storage and issuance of cards. These have been addressed by Postbank, “he said.
Zulu also said that given the need to replace the cards in circulation, Sassa made the decision not to issue more existing cards.
He cited that the need to replace the cards in a very short period would be an inconvenience for the recipients of social grants.
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“Discussions are underway with SAPO and Postbank to ensure that the replacement of the cards is done with the least possible disruption for customers,” he said.
In the past five years, more than 282 million rand has been looted from Sassa, which is responsible for distributing social grants to more than 16 million South Africans.
A total of 258 cases were recorded in the past five years in all provinces, Zulu previously said.
Of these, only 76 officials had been fired. In total, 156 were suspended preventively and 26 were suspended without pay.
KwaZulu-Natal recorded the highest number of injunctive suspensions and firings: 111 officials were suspended and 25 dismissed.
Regarding the challenges with Sassa cards, Zulu said: “Sassa is not the custodian of the cards. These are banking instruments that are managed in a banking environment. Fighting crime and corruption, including fraud detection, it is a key national priority and Sassa is committed to playing its role. “
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